House Progressives Force Another Mark-Up Delay
And here we go again. Now that House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman Henry Waxman has enough Blue Dog support to pass the bill, he has to sell it with progressives. And that's not proving to be as easy as he'd hoped.
"[They] have a lot of questions about the legislation," Waxman told reporters, "and I think it's more important that we sit in the Democratic Caucus and let people ask questions, get answers, hear each other out."
What exactly are their concerns? Well, for one, the compromise included a change to the public option that could weaken it on the merits. As originally written, the House bill would have temporarily tied the public option's pay rates to Medicare rates. Now they'll be negotiated by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, meaning the rates will vary regionally, and often fall closer to private insurance rates than government rates.
But more generally, the Congressional Progressive Caucus basically believes that their views have been marginalized throughout the Blue Dog process, and are understandably frustrated about being asked to accept compromises with Blue Dogs when they've already compromised a great deal. Last week, several House progressives warned that they couldn't tolerate any further weakening of the public option, and asked to play a greater role in negotiations. Now they feel leaders ignored their concerns.
The mark up was scheduled to resume tonight, but now it looks like it will have to wait until tomorrow, with the goal still to pass the bill by Friday.
Josh
Matt
Eric
Brian
Leaving governance to Democrats..sheesh..
STFU already
July 29, 2009 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
US: Health Care (Time 7/27-28)
from Pollster.com All Content by pollster.emily@gmail.com (Emily Swanson)
by Emily Swanson
July 29, 2009 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Healthcare: 'Losing the Message War?'
from Pollster.com All Content by mark@pollster.com (Mark Blumenthal)
by Mark Blumenthal
July 29, 2009 5:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
How can Democrats possibly win a message war on anything as long as the Benedict Arnold Blue Cross Dogs believe their entire purpose in life is to sell right wing conservative Republican values?
July 29, 2009 6:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
The problem isn't the Blue Dogs or the Progressives.
The problem is that the Democrats have no bills, no plan and thus no message leaving a free fire zone open for anti-reform message including the most incredible rumors (euthanasia)
This is no accident either. Patients United has an ad running right now "Congress read the bill" (what bill??) and how it will trash seniors
The House Bill, the HELP bill and the Finance Committee bills once they're all reported out will put a stop to this attention to Capitol Hill games and frame a debate that Americans can understand, allowing dems to get back on message
Blumenthal gets it
http://www.pollster.com/blogs/healthcare_losing_the_message.php
So does Nate Silver
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/07/obama-democrats-flunking-health-care.html
The Time and Kaiser Polls confirm their fears
Time for Blue Dogs and Yellow Dogs to go back to their respective kennels and get about the business of passing health care reform this year, back to the business of governing
If they don't come next year they will both pay dearly
#)Y$#@@!!
July 29, 2009 6:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ahem!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/30/us/politics/30poll.html?hp
July 29, 2009 6:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
What me worry?
We can use Maxine Waters's and Lynn Woolsey's clout to see this through...
By all means progressives stop the Waxman compromise, break Baucus....
Good God
July 29, 2009 6:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
NBC/WSJ
Note the differences with the more specific goal oriented, broad outline questions in the Time/Kaiser and NyT Polls
Like duh..WHAT PLAN?
In the Time Poll, the Kaiser Poll, the NyT poll the voters embrace the President's "plan" by substantial margins
That is a message failure, playing right out in front of us and due pretty much entirely to the fact that the Congress with its 24% approval rating has dominated every health care news cycle since the 4th of July break
July 29, 2009 7:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
The problem is custom designed by both the White House and the Congress. They are so totally gutless that they won't say what they are even trying to do. Healthcare reform means what? Means anything. Means nothing. Universal healthcare means something - it doesn't express all the details but it commits to something. Single payer commits to genuinely major change. An extension of Medicare would be understandable.
Reform? Ha! Who is being reformed? Insurance companies? Providers? Patients? the poor? the rich? the old? the young? who knows.
But I'll tell you the number one reason they don't have a message. They don't give a damn. They have no passion for this issue. And the public isn't so stupid that they can't tell.
I voted against Amy Klobuchar the minute she said universal healthcare is unrealistic because that told me all I would ever need to know about her. She doesn't give a damn. So she will vote for any bill no matter how bad it is and if it fails she'll just say I told you universal healthcare is unrealistic.
July 29, 2009 7:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
UR right it means nothing which is because it means a thousand things
There is a 1000 page bill waiting in Energy and Commerce which provides but one answer to your righteously accurate lament
Fer crissakes get it out
July 29, 2009 7:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think you have it right. The biggest problem is that this is taking forever. health care reform has to be done quickly, with a clear plan and a way to roll ut out publicly.
Delays play into the hands of opponents - a clear piece of legislation can be wielded as a hammer on those weasels who lie about the public option being used for suicide and human-chimp intermarriage or whatever.
Get it out, get it done, fight back, Congressional Dems!
July 30, 2009 10:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm glad the Progressive Caucus wants this review and I hope they will not let a crap bill get out of the committee. Stand Up Progressives for real reform and nothing less!
July 29, 2009 5:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agree wholeheartily
July 29, 2009 6:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I totally agree.
July 29, 2009 6:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
They can change the dang bill once it gets out of committee. But if it doesn't get out of committee,and doesn't get a vote we will have nothing. And nothing means the Repugs get control of the country again. The purity trolls will love that.
July 29, 2009 5:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wanting a bill that actually does what it claims to do != being a "purity troll"- I'm sick to death of this kind of stupid, ignorant bullshit. And the cohesiveness of the progressive caucus is the ONLY hope for getting a decent bill at all; without that we'd get nothing but Baucus horsecrap. More power to them.
July 29, 2009 6:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Baucus is in Senate, he has nothing to do with this.
July 29, 2009 6:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Newsflash: there is a DINO caucus in the House as well. Indeed, I suspect you actually know this.
In addition, it is ESSENTIAL to get the strongest House bill possible into conference since the Senate version is unlikely to be as good.
July 29, 2009 6:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I know how you feel, but if a lame, compromised bill is what we start with, no way will we get progressive changes.
I honestly think that Congress needs to go home and get an earful from their constituents. It is up to all of us to burn up the phone, fax, and us postal service lines to let our "representatives" know that we want them to represent us rather than the lobbyists who are spending a million dollars a day to buy them!
Sure there are those who the fear-mongers can line up -- euthanasia! government take-over! interfering with your doctor-patient relationship! But they are in the Palin/Beck/Cheney wing of the Party of No, and if the rest of us pipe up, they just might get the message!
July 29, 2009 6:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Another thing we have to watch out for here is preventing both the Blue Dogs and the members of the Obama administration who will settle for any bill from gutting Medicare and Medicaid and the SCHIP guarantees to cover children.
The Blue Dogs, by demanding that this bill be hugely underfunded, are provoking a shell game where we rob some poor folks to help out some other poor folks because of course we can't under any circumstances tax the wealthy and we have to have plenty of money left over for all of our tax free wars.
July 29, 2009 6:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am borrowing a comment from Matt Yglesias's blog to try to explain to some people why gilding any old turd and declaring it "health care reform" would not be an accomplishment, nor even a winner in crass political terms, but a disaster all around.
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/07/the-public-plan-you-wont-have-access-to.php#comments
July 29, 2009 7:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes you borrowed. Thanks for pointing that out and providing the link so that we can all see that your post has nothing much to do with what either Klein or Yglesias wrote
Sorry to burst your bootstrapping but the credibility of your argument...("the gilded turd"?) will have to stand or fall on its own
July 29, 2009 7:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
and yes, passing a bill or bills is crucial to the whole enterprise..indeed it is the whole point!
Diddling over details in imaginary legislation is patently self-defeating. Conference committee can do as it pleases with columns A,B,C, D..that's where the rubber meets the road but if the Congress continues to wander aimlessly on side streets, it will never find the road.
Not only will health care reform die but with it any number of other issues near and dear to progressives who seem to have great difficulty finding the forest for the trees
July 29, 2009 7:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Passing sham "reform" that visibly makes most people WORSE off will have far more severe political consequences. And they'll be hitting the fan just as Obama runs for re-election.
July 29, 2009 7:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Which means exactly what this sham reform you speak of
That's a nice tautology - totally meaningless
July 29, 2009 7:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Apparently you can't read with comprehension (no surprise there). That comment precisely describes the absolutely predictable consequences of trying to do insurance reform (banning pre-existing conditions etc) and forcing more people to buy what the providers are selling (i.e. an insurance company bailout), but without the market discipline provided by competition from a public plan. It can't and won't work. Anybody who has the most elementary understanding of health care reform knows that a bad bill can and will make a bad situation even worse.
July 29, 2009 7:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
"The issue is fueled by a very real problem, and the problem people have is that their elected senators and representatives are not trying to solve the problem."
Yes, that's it. They want to pass a bill IF it is perceived to be politically expedient. They don't really care what is in the bill or if it solves any long term problem or if it saves one life.
July 29, 2009 7:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's what Yglesias actually wrote and it is four square with what I have argued for weeks
July 29, 2009 7:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
And the comment I linked to from serialcatowner succinctly explained exactly why that won't work without a strong public option to exert downward pressure on rates.
I don't think you know or care anything about health policy, frankly.
July 29, 2009 7:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Howard Dean would say that you are supporting an insurance reform bill not a healthcare reform bill. No wonder the party has such a difficult time with the messaging. It doesn't really know what it's trying to do. Do we want to reform insurance companies or deliver universal healthcare? This is not new. The old DLC reformed welfare. They did not end poverty, though they have pretty well managed to ban the word "poor" from language used by Democratic politicians.
July 29, 2009 9:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pre-existing conditions and "recision" -- the two most sinister tools in the insurance cos toolbox -- are the two unsung stars of these bills.
Absolutely evil criminal shit.
No matter what happens, those evil practices need to be banned.
July 29, 2009 9:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
The typical middle aged voter will be greatly impacted if this is all that's in the bill. One of the items left of is the age rating factor. It doesn't matter how long you've had insurance or how healthy you are, the rates skyrocket as you get older. I'm 60 years old and paying 77% of my income for insurance that I don't use.
July 30, 2009 9:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hold your line, Progressives. YOU are not the ones who will be in danger in the next election no matter what happens with healthcare. It is the Blue Cross Dogs that will suffer the consequences. They know that, and so they are bluffing. Call their bluff. Say "no" to healthcare if you must and let it die - and let the chips fall where they may. They won't be falling on you. A fraudulent healthcare bill will keep us from having real healthcare reform for decades, so better to let healthcare reform die this time and live to fight another day, than accept a fraud that will take years to get rid of.
July 29, 2009 7:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Like herding cats
July 29, 2009 7:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Like talking to a department store dummy.
July 29, 2009 7:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Unbelievably I am getting emails via my OFA listservs calling me to Single Payer Rallies
My God, there IS NO SINGLE PAYER LEGISLATION folks
All the energy wasted herding cats blows my mind
here endeth the rant
July 29, 2009 7:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, I don't get that at all. Rally for something that isn't even part of the legislation, while what does exist is in danger of being watered-down into meaninglessness?
July 29, 2009 7:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
You tell me and we'll both know!
I think of it as the flip side of the euthanasia rumors emmating from the sewers of the right..not a substantive equivalence but a process thing..a symptom of massive drift in the public debate
This is WaPo's headline....this does more to advance the cause of Health Reform than anything in the past month
House Democrats Break Health-Care Gridlock
July 29, 2009 8:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Trees....
or forest?
July 29, 2009 8:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
The forest there is that the bill is going to be underfunded. Who in their right mind believes that you can truly transform the American healthcare system while still DELIVERING CARE while you are doing it and do it on the cheap?
Now we know that no wealthy person need fear to be taxed or fear to lose their concierge healthcare.
So who is lying their sick and injured on the cutting room floor of this bill?
July 29, 2009 8:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Single payer is not a bad thing to bring up, even now.
The Dem's miscalculated. They should have been talking about SP as a possibility all this time. It would have moved the goalposts leftward. Instead, the public option became the "lefty" extreme and the GOP demonizes it as radical.
A FWIW, I think this bill will be a great interim step in the health care battle. I expect that we will still need to fight for single payer in several years. The nation is clearly not ready for it yet. But eventually it might be our only choice, for purely financial reasons.
July 29, 2009 9:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's like they live in an alternate reality. Do these ASSHOLE blue dogs know that if they block a bill or a shitty bill passes THEY WILL BE THE FIRST TO GO. There is a REASON there are only 2 NE Republicans left, they were on the frontlines in 06 and 08. Hold strong CPC you may very well be our last hope.
July 29, 2009 8:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
You got the "hang" part right...
So much for your "last hope"
July 30, 2009 -NyT
House Reaches Agreement on Cutting Cost of Health Bill
July 29, 2009 8:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Beutler's done a fine job whipping the True Believers into a Beck-lite frenzy at TPM
Thank G-d Kleefeld's back! ;=P
July 29, 2009 8:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Remember, this is hardly the last time they'll be negotiating. This bill will still be negotiated in September all the way thru the end of the year.
If they are absolutely sure they will still get it done by Friday, fine. But don't screw this up!
July 29, 2009 9:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
First, let's stop calling these people "Blue Dogs" and start calling them by their real name - the "Lap Dogs" of the Private Insurance Industry.
Second, aren't these "Lap Dogs" the same ones always complaining about the cost of health reform? So how does it make sense for the Government to make the public option much more costly by negotiating the rates regionally instead of tying it to Medicare?
Oh, that's right. The insurance companies don't want to have to compete with an efficient, low overhead medical insurance program like Medicare, so instead their "Lap Dogs" want to force taxpayers to continue subsidizing private insurance companies by paying higher rates. So that the insurance companies can continue ripping off customers while paying their executives and shareholders countless billions of dollars that would otherwise be going towards IMPROVING HEALTHCARE. Call it the 'heads they win, tails we lose' medical plan.
Wouldn't it be a lot easier and ultimately cheaper just to do it the way the mafia does? Let's just pay the insurance companies and HBO's protection money. That's what all this really is, anyway.
Let's go ahead and pay them, say, $200 billion a year to fold up shop and allow us to have a single payer system, which would be much better and cheaper in the long run for everybody. We can have decent health care in America, countless thousands of Americans can live each year who would otherwise die, and they can take their blood money and go off the the Hampshires or the Berkshires or Aspen or Monte Carlo, or wherever the h it is that corporate blood-sucking thugs in Brioni suits go to try and prove to themselves they aren't worthless parasites. Just so long as they take their "Lap Dogs" with them.
July 30, 2009 2:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
The BlueDogs are not lapdogs. They're representatives who believe, wrongly in my view, that the health care system generally works for the American people. They believe this, likely, because their constituents seem to believe this.
The answer is to make sure that they understand local monopolization. Make sure they understand the effect bankrupcies have on the health care system. Make sure they understand that the AMA -- which represents doctors -- would not support the House bill unless it believed it was good for doctors and patients.
We're going to win this battle, but we won't win it if people insist that those who are a bit to the right of Waters are insurance company representatives. We need these votes.
July 30, 2009 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's clear the Blue Dogs played the role of spoilers regarding the public option but here's the deal. Single payer is the only way to go and the fight has to begin now to push this garbage legislation off to the side!
July 30, 2009 6:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
What about feedback progressive Caucus?
July 30, 2009 11:24 AM | Reply | Permalink